History TotalDrama / TropesQToZ

** A double elimination occurring in the same ceremony, which becomes a staple [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness after]] ''[[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Island]]''.[[note]]Courtney and Owen in ''Action'', Blaineley and Courtney in ''World Tour'', Anne Maria and Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Gwen and Scott in ''All Stars'', Max and Scarlett in ''Pahkitew Island'', Raj and Wayne in ''Island (2023)''[[/note]]
** A contestant getting directly disqualified by Chris for something they did, resulting in a NonGameplayElimination. Avoids occurring in ''Revenge of the Island'' and ''Island (2023)''.[[note]]DJ in ''Island (2007)'', Owen in ''Action'', Sierra in ''World Tour'', Duncan and Gwen in ''All Stars'', Ella, Max, and Scarlett in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]
** Contestants switching to the opposing team for whatever reason. Happens in every season except ''Action'' and ''Island (2023)''.[[note]]Izzy and Katie in ''Island (2007)'', Izzy and Sierra in ''World Tour'', Brick, Jo, and Scott in ''Revenge of the Island'', Cameron, Courtney, and Duncan in ''All Stars'', Max and Sky in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]

* SpicyLatina: Courtney, according to WordOfGod.

** Axel, who personality-wise resembles Eva, is also the first girl voted off the reboot.

** A contestant getting directly disqualified by Chris for something they did, resulting in a NonGameplayElimination. Avoids occurring in ''Revenge of the Island'' and ''Island (2023)''.[[note]]DJ in ''Island'', Owen in ''Action'', Sierra in ''World Tour'', Duncan and Gwen in ''All Stars'', Ella, Max, and Scarlett in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]
** Contestants switching to the opposing team for whatever reason. Happens in every season except ''Action'' and ''Island (2023)''.[[note]]Izzy and Katie in ''Island'', Izzy and Sierra in ''World Tour'', Brick, Jo, and Scott in ''Revenge of the Island'', Cameron, Courtney, and Duncan in ''All Stars'', Max and Sky in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]

** A contestant getting directly disqualified by Chris for something they did, resulting in a NonGameplayElimination. Avoids occurring in ''Revenge of the Island'' and ''Island (2023)''.[[note]]DJ in ''Island'', Owen in ''Action'', Sierra in ''World Tour'', Duncan and Gwen in ''All Stars'', Ella and Max in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]

** A contestant being eliminated after suffering an accident that leaves them so injured they must wear [[BandageMummy bandages all over their body]]. Note that said injuries aren't always the reason for their elimination, and this miraculously manages to be avoided in ''Pahkitew Island''. [[note]]Cody in ''Island'', Justin in ''Action'', Tyler in ''World Tour'', Scott in ''Revenge of the Island'', Cameron in ''All Stars'', Raj and Wayne in ''Island (2023)''[[/note]]
** One or more contestants returning to the competition after being eliminated, which stops in ''All Stars'' and subsequent seasons. [[note]]Eva and Izzy in ''Island'', Owen in ''Action'', Duncan in ''World Tour'', Dakota in ''Revenge of the Island''[[/note]]
** A double elimination occurring in the same ceremony, which becomes a staple [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness after]] ''[[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Island]]''. [[note]]Courtney and Owen in ''Action'', Blaineley and Courtney in ''World Tour'', Anne Maria and Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Gwen and Scott in ''All Stars'', Max and Scarlett in ''Pahkitew Island'', Raj and Wayne in ''Island (2023)''[[/note]]
** A contestant getting directly disqualified by Chris for something they did, resulting in a NonGameplayElimination. Avoids occurring in ''Revenge of the Island'' and ''Island (2023)''. [[note]]DJ in ''Island'', Owen in ''Action'', Sierra in ''World Tour'', Duncan and Gwen in ''All Stars'', Ella and Max in ''Pahkitew Island''[[/note]]

* SummerCampy: The premise of the series is a challenge-based summer camp reality TV show, but not all seasons have the summer camp setting. Those that do are the original ''Island'', ''Revenge of the Island'', and ''All-Stars''. At the island-based Camp Wawanakwa, several teenagers have to endure all the classic elements of a crappy summer camp - horrible food, dirty cabins, disgusting washrooms, and [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou all the dangers offered by the great outdoors]]. Some of these are part of challenges, others are a condition of being a contestant in the first place.

** In "[[TotalDramaASkullBasedGame A Skull Based Game]]" Ripper uses Priya as a HumanShield in order to win the challenge. Bowie, Wayne and Raj (and Julia) still attack them with water hoses, toilet plungers and even a giant boulder, all of which hit Priya and not Ripper.

** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason other than [[PlayedForLaughs laughs]]. Currently, these include Owen in ''Island'', Harld in ''Action'', Tyler in ''World Tour'', Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Scott in ''All Stars'', Max in ''Pahkitew Island'', and Chase in ''Island (2023)''.

** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason. Currently, these include Owen in ''Island'', Harld in ''Action'', Tyler in ''World Tour'', Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Scott in ''All Stars'', Max in ''Pahkitew Island'', and Chase in ''Island (2023)''.

** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason. Currently, these include Harold in ''Island'' and ''Action'', Tyler in ''World Tour'', Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Scott in ''All Stars'', Max in ''Pahkitew Island'', and Chase in ''Island (2023)''.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "Phobia Factor" has the campers face their fears (Snakes was one of them). Some have recognizable fears while others have eccentric fears.

** Justin only has FOUR LINES of dialogue in the first season (not counting the special), and they were all in the first episode in the timespan of about one minute.

** In "That's Off the Chain!", Lindsay gives Heather a big time ReasonYouSuckSpeech, when the former ''finally'' realizes that the latter had been stringing her along the whole time, despite Lindsay's UndyingLoyalty to Heather and her alliance.

* RevengeOfTheSequel: It is the fourth season , ''Revenge of the Island'', that bears the classic sequel title in respect to the first season, ''Island''. This is because the second and third season both take place away from the titular island, while the fourth season marks the return to where it all began.

** The first generation has the single-minded best friends Katie and Sadie.

** Emma also has two: going her way to target and injury Chase in the middle of challenges and randomly breaking into a HappyDance.
** Millie writing on her notebook whenever somebody does something weird in front of her.
** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason. Currently these include Harold in ''Island'' and ''Action'', Tyler in ''World Tour'', Brick in ''Revenge of the Island'', Scott in ''All Stars'', Max in ''Pahkitew Island'', and Chase in ''Island (2023)''.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Played straight with Dakota, who is so rich she came for the fame not the prize money. She is able to return back to the show to pester Chris, because she whines to her rich dad who pays the sadistic host a large bribe. Chris accepts, though he makes Dakota an [[MauveShirt intern]].

** Alejandro has a bit of this as well, but its thrown into obscurity due to his [[ManipulativeBastard master manipulation]] being given more focus.

** Any chance for romance between Dave and Sky dies in the ''Pahkitew Island'' finale, when it's revealed that Sky already has a boyfriend. This itself isn't the problem, because she's ready to break up with him for Dave, but Dave feels betrayed and used and becomes dangerously vengeful.

** Many scenes with Courtney and Gwen in ''All-Stars'' [[spoiler:prior to "Sundae Muddy Sundae"]] are very touchy-feely and more more pleasant than either girl's scenes with Duncan.

** Heather and Alejandro constantly fight because they both want the money. During the ''All-Stars'' finale, when they had both been eliminated from winning, they were actually a sickeningly sweet loving couple. Up until Chris gave them a chance to get back in the game.

** As seen in "The Aftermath: IV", Justin wears a blue sleepmask that matches his pajamas, fitting his vain nature. It's slipped across his head and no longer covers his eyes at the time of recording, suggesting that Justin moves a lot while asleep.

* SnapBack: Most character's injuries are undone in the transition to the following episode. Exceptions include any case where the character lost their hair, the tooth Heather lost from Leshawna beating her up in "Slap Slap Revolution," which had to be replaced with a golden tooth for the remainder of the season, and [[spoiler: Gollum!Ezekiel and Drama Machine!Alejandro]], in the transition from the ''World Tour'' finale to TheCameo in the ''Revenge of the Island'' premiere.
* SnipeHunt: Subverted in ''All-Stars'' where at the end of every episode Chris has a contestant volunteer to go to Boney Island for the night to look for the immunity idol. It is revealed in "No One Eggspects The Spanish Opposition" that the immunity idol was in the "Fun Zone", a sealed off area of Boney Island that houses the mutated animals from ''Revenge of the Island''. So in others words, the idol ''was'' on Boney Island but it was in an area that nobody had access to.

** In "Heroes vs. Villains" of ''All-Stars'', the contestants arrive on the island via jumping or being thrown out of the plane. They have no parachutes, but land safely in the sea. Later that episode, they have to do the same challenge as the one in "Not So Happy Campers - Part 2" by thousand-foot cliff into water below.

** [[spoiler: Mal locks away all the personalities away in the mindscape-including Mike. He spends majority of ''All Stars'' pretending to be Mike.]]

** Duncan, Heather, Gwen, and Owen have the highest episode counts out of all of the contestants in the series. [[spoiler:All four of them made it to the final four in the first season without returning, Duncan and Owen have also been some of the few contestants to return in the game. All four of them were also finalists, which means that in certain countries, they were picked as that season's winner]]. Although Owen's is far lower thanks to him not competing in ''All-Stars''. [[note]]Unless you count his appearances on the Ridonculous Race, which would give him the most screen-time out of all the contestants in the series.[[/note]]
** Courtney is this from ''Action'' onwards, where she became the BigBad of the second half of the season. In ''World Tour'' and ''All-Stars'' she her involvement in the LoveTriangle with Duncan and Gwen is heavily focused in both seasons. Also in ''All-Stars'', she makes it very far and is given a new love interest in the form of Scott, which also put her at centre stage.
** Leshawna, Lindsay, and Harold, mostly due to their conflicts with Heather, Courtney, and Duncan in the first two seasons, and for the latter two because they produce so many [[Funny/TotalDrama funny moments]]; all three are [[OutOfFocus eliminated early on]] in ''World Tour'' [[spoiler: due to being on the unfortunate Team Victory which was targeted by Alejandro]], however Harold is still able to retain some substantial focus by dominating the ''Aftermath'' episodes.

** In ''World Tour'', newcomers Alejandro and Sierra receive a lot of focus, especially when they interact with any of the aforementioned Spotlight Stealers. It did not help when it became gradually obvious that Alejandro was Heather's long awaited canonical love interest, while also serving as the BigBad of World Tour. Both return in ''All-Stars'', but only Alejandro with a big role.
** Zoey has had the most screentime of any second generation cast member, receiving ample focus in both ''Revenge of the Island'' and ''All-Stars''. Her being in the spotlight is particularly strange in that she spends most of ''Revenge of the Island'' as a SatelliteLoveInterest and does not contribute anything to the plot of ''All-Stars'' until the very end of the season.

** Shawn and Jasmine in ''Pahkitew'' have substantial focus throughout the season due to their ShipTease with, the respective friendship with Dave and Samey. About Shawn, considering he's also a finalist, this makes him the overall the most focused on contestant in ''Pahkitew Island''.
** Sugar in ''Pahkitew''. She has made more enemies than any other contestant in the season, and is the most focused on BigBad this time round. As well as frequently stealing the show with gross-out gags in a manner similar to Owen.

* {{Squee}}: Katie, Sadie, and Sierra are big time squee-queens; for the former two, it's practically their trademark. Lindsay and Beth also have some moments.

* StatusQuoGameShow: Most of the finales have the winners losing the prize money in some way. This is probably because they make more than one season with the same cast, and the character wouldn't have a reason to compete again if they were already a millionare.

* StealthHiBye: Dawn has a habit of appearing and disappearing without warning to her teammates, needless to say it freaks them out a bit.

* StrictlyFormula: Most episodes begin with a conflict between two or more campers, a challenge which plays off that conflict (which takes up most of the episode) and an elimination ceremony that will resolve it unless the conflict is over several episodes (except for when they don't do an elimination). It makes it extremely difficult to vary the amount of screen-time, leading to EnsembleDarkHorse and SpotlightStealingSquad for multiple characters.

** The actions of Heather, Alejandro, and Courtney means absolutely no one has any incentive to trust them. Heather is especially despised for her acts of cruelty to Gwen, and it takes very little convincing for Mal to get everyone to vote off Alejandro because of his actions in World Tour.

* TakeAThirdOption: In "Aftermath: Bridgette Over Troubled Water", Blainely asks the non-contestants whether they think the sightings of Ezekiel on the Total Drama Jumbo Jet are real of fake. Katie and Sadie go with option "ghost".

** Heather sends Gwen a cupcake laced with laxative in "The Very Last Episode, Really!". She does this to ensure Gwen loses the finale, but Gwen isn't hungry and gives the cupcake to Owen, the other finalist, who ends up with all the intestinal consequences. Heather later gets her comeuppance when in "Alien Resurr-eggtion" Chef comes after her for tampering with the food he made.

* TheTeam: There are two kinds of teams in the series: officially designated teams and alliances. Every season, the contestants are divided in two teams (three in ''World Tour'') that have to compete against each other. The losing team has to vote off one of their own at that evening's elimination ceremony. When enough contestants have been eliminated, the teams are dissolved during the merge and it becomes everyone against everyone. Alliances are made by the contestants themselves and can be within a team, across teams, and the merge can't end them. On the other hand, alliances are fragile and never consist of a lot of people; four is a rarity and more than four only happens once or twice.

* TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste: The buried alive conflict between Gwen and Trent from season one. It was incredibly flimsy and came up in random times, as Gwen wanted to be in the same boat as Trent by the episode after Trent left her buried alive, but suddenly the entire conflict comes up again three episodes later. And after that the entire thing just dissolves and is never brought up again.

** {{Inverted|Trope}} in situations involving Justin, who is so gorgeous that when he falls into a shark infested pool in ''Action'', a dismayed shark pulls him out of the water and then proceeds to ''[[RuleOfFunny perform CPR on him]]''.

** Most of the ''World Tour'' previews and trailers have large scale group shots which pretty much confirm which characters make it up to what episode, due to the incredibly obvious backgrounds (pyramids, the Eiffel Tower) most viewers found it extremely easy to deduce exactly which episodes each character is present in.

** Poor Gwen constantly ends up with the short end of the stick no matter how hard she tries. [[spoiler:First she's humiliated by Heather reading her diary aloud to the world near the beginning of season one. Then she makes it to the final two of the season only to lose at the last minute. She ends up having a falling out in her relationships with both Trent ''and'' Duncan, leading directly to her returning to the show in the fourth season in hopes of patching up her friendship with Courtney only to have the latter betray her.]] And that's not even counting all the torture Chris and Chef put her through in the main show.

** "I Love You, I Love You Knots" is a truth or dare challenge at the risk of the entire team being administered electric shocks. Those who have to be truthful are judged by Clucky, a LivingLieDetector chicken. The campers who end up with Clucky on their laps are Amy, Rodney, Max, Ella. Of them, Rodney is the only one who gets multiple truth challenges and he blows them all because they all relate to his romantic life and he thinks he's the interest of multiple girls and doesn't want to hurt any of them.

** Duncan is also this over the course of the series as he acts like a jerk a few seconds on entering Island and threatened to pierce Noah's lip. He bullies Harold a lot as well. His nice side first shows when he gets DJ a new bunny after Geoff accidentally loses DJ's old one. He reverts back to aggressive in Action as he punches a seagull in the face in Action but his relationship with Harold slightly improved and he started a good friendship with Beth. He also acted as a motherly figure towards DJ, Harold, and Justin as shown in a hidden clip in the finale when he helps all of them sleep better by placing teddy bears and adjusting sleep masks. His status as this trope fully blows over when he takes a hit for Gwen in the leech challenge and is forced to switch to the heroes team and he later cries over taking an innocent birds egg.

* UnderwearFlag: While it's not shown, Duncan and Gwen did this in one episode after stargazing together and getting [[ShipTease a little too close for friends]]. Gwen states that they did this after Geoff tries to imply they kissed. In a rare version of this trope, they ran ''everyone's'' underpants up the flagpole, rather then just one person.

** Max attempts an evil laugh in "So, Uh This Is My Team?" when he finds a cave that suits him as an evil lair. He gives himself two tries, but can't produce anything intimidating and ubsequently deems it unimportant.

** Ella and Sugar have a one sided case of this in " Pahkitew Island" with the vitriolic bud being Sugar as she despises Ella's sweetness and singing while Ella just wants to be friends with Sugar.

** A more comical version would be Harold, who has had slapfights with both Courtney and Heather in "Haute Camp-ture" and "[[Recap/TotalDramaOceansEightOrNine Ocean's Eight - Or Nine]]" respectively.

** Chris loves doing this when contestants ''think'' they've won a challenge, only for him to come in and tell them that there's either more to the challenge, or that they've screwed up somehow.

* TrashTheSet: ''All-Stars'' ends with Camp Wawanakwa being sunk due to a drilling mishap, paving the way for the eponymous new island in ''Pahkitew Island''.

* VasquezAlwaysDies: Hotheaded tomboy Eva is the first girl to be voted off. Then again she ''does'' come back... only to be voted off immediately afterwards.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: The average amount of skin the female contestants leave unprotected is notable, but it's especially weird when one considers the kind of show they've signed up for. Special mention goes to Heather, Lindsay, Izzy, Katie, Sadie, Amy, Sammy, and Jasmine, who all wear tops combined with shorts or a short skirt.

** Chester complaining about all the walking he has do in their journey through the subconscious.

** Damien has two: noting how unnecessarily dangerous the show's challenges are and randomly stating scientific facts regarding said challenges' elements.

** Chase trying to catch Emma's attention in the middle of a challenge, which usually ends with him getting hurt either by her or his own fault.

** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason. Currently these include Harold, Tyler, Brick, Scott, Max, and Chase.

* SanitySlippage: Sierra suffers from this pretty badly over the course of ''All-Stars'' due to Cody not competing that season, to the point where she begins to see Cameron as a Cody substitute.

* Millie writing on her notebook whenever somebody does something weird in front of her.

** Owen's farting and eating anything that can fit in his mouth (which is later passed on to Sugar).

** Each season having a designated [[IronButtMonkey pain magnet]], who gets injured excessively for no apparent reason. Currently they include: Harold, Tyler, Brick, Scott, and Max.
** The end of each series' intro (except for ''World Tour'') has a couple [[AlmostKiss preparing to kiss]], [[MomentKiller only for something to kill the moment]].

** However, as the series progressed, the eliminations became more over the top; ''Revenge of the Island'' had the "Hurl of Shame", a large catapult used to fling contestants off the island, ''All Stars'' had the "Flush of Shame", a ''giant toilet'' where eliminated players are flushed down the drain, and ''Pahkitew Island'' had the "Cannon of Shame", a circus cannon which was used to shoot eliminated players off the island.

* UnexplainedRecovery: Scott in ''All-Stars,'' owing to AmusingInjuries.

* TraumaCongaLine: Poor Gwen constantly ends up with the short end of the stick no matter how hard she tries. [[spoiler:First she's humiliated by Heather reading her diary aloud to the world near the beginning of season one. Then she makes it to the final two of the season only to lose at the last minute. She ends up having a falling out in her relationships with both Trent ''and'' Duncan, leading directly to her returning to the show in the fourth season in hopes of patching up her friendship with Courtney only to have the latter betray her.]] And that's not even counting all the torture Chris and Chef put her through in the main show.

* TeamShot: Each opening ends with a shot of the contestants, usually seated around a campfire. Each first episode of a season that introduces a new cast (''Island'', ''Revenge of the Island'', and ''Pahkitew Island'') also has at least one scene in which all contestants are on-screen.
* TeensAreShort: Mostly averted, as many of the contestants are the same height, if not taller, than Chris. Also, Blaineley is roughly the same height as the teens. A few contestants, such as Beth, Cody, Cameron, Dawn, and Max play this straight, however.